DAVY LIDGITT, THE CARRIER;
OR,
THE MAN WHO BROUGHT HIS NINEPENCE TO NOUGHT.
Louth, sixty years ago, as now, was the handsomest as well as the largest town in the north of Lincolnshire, though you would not then have seen in it, as you may now, if you go that way, a dashing mail-coach, with a dashing red-coated and gold-laced guard, dash off and dash in daily to and from Rasen, and Gainsborough, and Sheffield. "Long" Ludforth, too—(they spell it "Ludford" on the maps; but, doubtless, they who live there know better the name of the place than your mere map-makers!)—Long Ludforth, too, was nearly as deserving of its name, then, as now. And, in default of all other means of conveyance for goods and passengers, Davy Lidgitt, the carrier, traversed the ten miles of distance between the village and market-town "every Wednesday and Saturday—twice a week, regular," as the inscription read on the front of his neat tilted cart; for your new-fangled way of sticking the carrier's name on one side of his vehicle had not then been invented by the tax-making gentry at head-quarters.
Davy Lidgitt was excelled in diligence and punctuality by never a carrier, even in those diligent and punctual times, and gained the universal respect of his employers, and, what was of more solid value, a neat little independence, to boot, as the reward of his life of industry and uprightness. Davy,—it should be "Old Davy;" for that was the name by which he was known for the greater part of his public life,—Old Davy would have felt himself to be a happy man could he have regarded young Davy, his son, as one who was likely to tread, morally as well as physically, in his steps. But Old Davy Lidgitt, like all other mortals, lacked the single ingredient in his cup which could give it the power of making his bliss complete on this side the grave.
Not that young Davy was idle, or profligate, or devoid of wit, according to some people's acceptation of the term. In fact, the majority of the plain villagers of Long Ludforth agreed that, "if aught, young Davy Lidgitt had ower much wit for one of his calling." And, for activity, few could match young Davy. From a mere child he aspired to wield his father's long whip, and at ten years old could manage the brown mare and the black horse that composed the carrier's team as well as Old Davy himself could manage them. Moreover, he was always to be found about the cart or the stable, at the market-town, when the goods were delivered, and could never be tempted to spend either his time, health, or money at the ale-tap. Up to the age of five-and-twenty,—when Old Davy, at sixty, fully retired to enjoy the brief remnant of life in the snug but small cottage he had purchased,—young Davy had not failed to accompany his father as regularly as Wednesday and Saturday returned in each week to Louth and back, attending so rigidly and cleverly to every item of parcel and package, letter and message, that the villagers would one and all declare "young Davy Lidgitt had a head like an almanack!"
"Why, what in the world, then, could it be," you will ask, "that caused old Davy to look upon a lad, with his son's commendations, in the light of disparagement?" If the truth must be told, we must begin at the beginning. Young Davy showed sundry symptoms of a disposition that his father did not like, even when a child: he would hook the gears one day in one mode and another day in another, often to the provocation of some such harsh exclamation on the part of the senior Lidgitt, as—"'Od rabbet thee! thou'st been at thy kickshaw tricks again, with the old mare's belly-band: she'll be kicking thy busy brains out some of these days!" And many a kick, to say troth, young Davy received for these "kickshaw" tricks: but he persevered, with the belief that the way of harnessing a cart-horse might be improved. Yet his father could never discern that either in this or any other of his displays of genius, such as clipping or tying the manes of the horses in whimsical forms, or hanging their collars, and halters, and so forth, in "apple-pie order," as the old man called it, in the home stable—I say, old Davy could never arrive at the conclusion that young Davy, in any of these intended "improvements" ever effected a real one.
"But, Lord love thee, Davy!" Betty Lidgitt would usually say, when her spouse had been relating his boy's latest whim, in her ears, at supper-time,—"Lord love thee, Davy, he's only a child; and thou knaws childer will be childer: one can't set old heads upo' young shouthers: he'll give over with his meagrims when he grows older: thou wants patientness, Davy,—patientness! Thou knaws I tell'd thee so, before we were married!"
These pleasant motherly excuses for the lad quieted the father for some years; but, one day, when the young "Reformer" had proceeded so far as to take away the horse-shoe from the door-jamb,—that mystic surety of good luck to the cottage by the opinions of every inhabitant of Long Ludforth, and which the parson had never said was wrong,—old Davy could forbear no longer to put into execution a resolve that had been for some months forming in his mind.
"Betty! I'll take him to Wise Tom, and have his planet ruled!" said he, "for I feel sartain and sewer some'at isn't right about the lad: he's the very devil for mischief! Lord ha' marcy on us, if the young varment hasn't tucken the horse-shoe away now! some'at will be happening us I'm sewer!"
And, on the following Monday morning, when his team had rested a day after their usual Saturday's travel, old Davy Lidgitt arose betimes, and, calling up his son, set forth with him on the way to Welton, to visit the astrologer.
It will be long before the memory of old Tom Cussitt, "the wise man of Welton," will be forgot in Lindsey. "Cusworth" was his proper name, but old Lindsey folk made it a rule to shorten folks' names when they had to use them often, and there were few names more frequently in a peasant's mouth, at that time of the day, for twenty miles round Louth, than that of "Tom Cussitt." Good Lord! if one were to tell all the stories one has heard of his discoveries of stolen goods by the stars; of the marks he was wont to put on the thieves, that the owners of the goods might know the rogues when they saw 'em; of the wondrous way in which he could show a love-sick maiden her future husband in the old-fashioned witch-looking mirror that hung in his darkened room; and of the strange facts he foretold to some people, when he "cast their nativities,"—that mystic process in which he never erred a hair's breadth,—why, it would take a twelvemonth to go through the labour! But, to attend to old and young Davy. It was but half-a-dozen miles from Long Ludforth to Welton, and so they and their little team were soon there.
Young Davy, it may be guessed, gazed hard at the "Wise Man," and thought him an awful-looking personage, though Tom Cussitt was, at that time of day, a somewhat handsome-looking man. His fine clear blue eye was not, as yet, overhung with those bushy, unsightly brows that marked him in old age; his fair, ruddy skin was not, as yet, disfigured and concealed by the filthy long gray beard he afterwards wore; nor had his fine manly height yet contracted a stoop. Old Davy had often seen Wise Tom before, having frequently conveyed customers to his cottage, and therefore he did not stare at him with wonder or surprise, like the lad. As for Tom, he, of course, stared at neither father nor son, being quite prepared, like Sidrophel, to say to every comer—
Not that Tom Cussitt was one of your ordinary conjurers,—your mere schemers who take up the trade to scrape a shilling from the gulls among mankind. Many a rich man has gone from Tom's door without being able, although he proffered pounds to the star-gazer, to obtain one syllable from him in solution of the great problem of futurity which the rich man desired so much to know. Nor did Tom usually set about the process of solving a "horary question," or "telling a fortune," with the imposing forms of books and almanacks. On some special occasions he would resort, like other clerks of the starry craft, to these learned appearances; but, more customarily, a single strong pithy remark, or two, delivered over his pipe, and in the course of a general conversation in which he engaged his visitors, comprised the gist of his prophecy respecting the future life of an inquirer, or of his direction for the recovery of stolen goods or chattels. Whatever might be the wise man's own confidence in the rules of prognostication by the stars, every shrewd observer noted that the prophet delivered his oracles rather by the gauge and admeasurement which his strong common sense enabled him to form of human character, and the accuracy by which it enabled him to judge of circumstances, than by any exercise of mathematical or other description of learned skill.
Old Davy was too full with the budget of young Davy's vagaries to need much craft on the part of one who wished to draw him out. The Wise Man quickly kenned what kind of stuff the young chap was made of, and did not feel that it required any great exercise of his wisdom to ken it, either. Old Davy, however, with all his fears for the lad's capricious inclinations, and their probable consequences when he himself might be lain in the grave, was scarcely prepared for the stunning severity of the single definitive sentence wherewith Wise Tom summed up his prophecy of young Davy's "fortune."
"Well, then, Maister Cussitt," said Davy the elder, taking his pipe from his mouth, after the lapse of an hour's chat, "and so what do you think of him? I've tell'd you the day, I'm sewer, quite exact; and I've told you the hour at which Betty brought him into the world, as near as I can remember."
"Reach us a spell, my lad!" said Cussitt to the younger Davy, and pointed to a neat wire case that hung against the wall, and contained long strips of paper wrapped up for pipe-lighters.
"You'll want two," said the very sharp lad, "for my fayther's pipe's out, an' all!"
"Is it, lad?" said old Davy, looking eagerly into the head of his pipe. "Lord! what eyes thou hast! there's nothing can 'scape thee, I declare!" And he chuckled with pleasure at his boy's acuteness.
"And so what think you, then," he asked again—"what think you, Maister Cussitt, will be our Davy's luck?"
Young Davy had just lighted the two spells, had held them to the pipes, severally, and had thrown the papers, neither of them half consumed, upon the fire.
"Think!" exclaimed the wise man, eyeing the youngster fiercely, and glancing at the father with a look that seemed to ask if there was now any need to tell what he thought—"think!" said he; "why, that he'll bring his ninepence to nought!" And he thrust his middle finger into the pipe-head to put out the fire in the tobacco, and placed the pipe, sternly, on the mantle-piece.
Old Davy's face fell; and he also laid down his pipe. Tom Cussitt took his large-skirted hat from the peg, called to his maid for the milking-kit, and prepared, according to his wont, to go forth and milk his cows; for he followed husbandry in humble and industrious style during the greater part of his life, notwithstanding his astrological profession. "Good morning, Davy Lidgitt!" he said; and left father and son, alike wonder-stricken, by the fire-side.
There, however, they did not remain many minutes, but were on their way to Ludforth; and a melancholy way it seemed to old Davy. Betty Lidgitt felt as melancholy as her husband when he had related Tom Cussitt's laconic prophecy. Yet she strove to comfort her spouse with the encouraging remembrance, that "the Wise Man had not said much; and, for the little that he did say, why, belike, it was meant more for caution than aught worse." Old Davy was willing to think so, but could not succeed in persuading himself of it; and, indeed, young Davy showed "too much of the cloven foot," as his father somewhat sourly said, at times, "to lead a body to think that the imp of mischief would ever leave him;" so that, to his dying day, poor old Davy would, ever and anon, sigh over his remembrance of Tom Cussitt's short but sorrowfully significant saying.
The story would become tiresome by going over the catalogue of a thousandth part of young Davy Lidgitt's doings in the "improving way," during the dozen years that intervened between the visit to the Wise man of Welton and old Davy's retirement from business as a carrier. Nor is it needful to chronicle similar deeds of the son that occurred from that period to the day of the father's death,—though some of these latter sorely harassed the old man's temper,—especially young Davy's purchase of coloured collars for the horses, and a fancy tilt, that cost thrice the price of the old one, and let in the rain! It was when old Davy was "safe under the sod," as the sexton said when he had finished the covering of his grave, and clapped it soundly with his spade in token of admiration for his own work,—it was then that young Davy began to let all the world in Long Ludforth see there was a man amongst them that possessed brains.
First, the "reformer" pulled down his father's low cottage, and engaged a swaggering builder to erect a tall four-storied house of brick, with a slated roof, on the same spot, taking in the little spot that had glowed so delightfully for many a year with roses, and pansies, and marigolds. True, the purse of two hundred spade-aces, left by his economical parent, did not suffice to finish the house in the style he had devised; so he warned the bricklayer to stop at three stories, and to leave out some of the fantastic stone ornaments he had procured at Louth. He sold the ornaments and some of the other extra materials which had already been brought upon his premises; but he permitted a tradesman to take them on credit, and was never paid for them. Then, finding the house was likely to remain unroofed for lack of money, he was constrained to go a-borrowing; but the errand and the reception he met reminded him strongly of one of his old father's sayings, which he used to think very simple when the old man was alive,—"He that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing!"—but young Davy did not think the proverb quite so simple, now. The farmers shook their heads at him, wherever he went, and said "No;" without a syllable of preface or addenda. And as for the monied men at Louth, they had all taken their gauge of young Davy Lidgitt, as well as the Wise Man of Welton; and the "man of improvements" could only borrow on a hard mortgage.
"And who are you to put into this new house when it is finished, Mister Lidgitt?" asked Grumley, the grocer, of Louth, very politely, one day, as he was riding past, and saw young Davy standing by to look at the builders.
Young Davy looked foolish at the question; for, having neither father nor mother, brother nor sister, in the world, he could only answer that he had no one to put into it but himself.
The grocer earnestly begged his company to dinner, when he next came to Louth; and young Davy felt so much flattered by so unusual an invitation, that he instantly accepted it. And young Davy found Mr. Grumley very cordial, and Mrs. Grumley exceedingly kind,—but, above all, the Misses Grumley were the most interesting creatures he had ever seen! The eldest, especially, won his respect,—or, he did not exactly know what to call it,—for he had thought more about improvements in horses, and carts, and stables, and houses, than aught else, all his life. But the eldest Miss—the Miss Grumley, by emphasis of courtesy—talked so sensibly about the clever improvements that young Mr. Brown had made in his farm-house, at Raithby, now his father was dead; and how he had married Miss Green, the chandler's daughter, and had bought such a nice gig!
To tell the reader at once, what he plainly sees is about coming to pass, young Mister Davy Lidgitt married Miss Grumley; and he also bought a nice gig—but it was bought on credit!
Proceeding with his "reforms" and "improvements," Davy turned daily carrier from Long Ludforth to Louth, in a smart, light van, having disposed of his father's old cart. But now young Davy began to think,—not willingly, but perforce,—for bills were pouring in upon him that he could not pay. But Mr. Grumley was ready to join in a note, since young Davy had already performed that kindness, more than once, for his father-in-law. Still young Davy was compelled to think; for, more than once, his grand daily trip in the new van to Louth did not afford freightage enough to cover the expense of the two toll-gates which "improvement" had set up between Long Ludforth and Louth market-place. So Davy fell off to "every other day" as a carrier. This was his first retrograde "reform," but, alas! it was not his last.
Expenses daily became heavier. Mrs. Lidgitt was gay when a grocer's daughter in a market town; but she felt it requisite and becoming to "take the lead" in dress, since her settlement in a village, where the affair, too, was so comparatively easy. And then, in the course of two years, two little Lidgitts were squalling about the house; and, in addition to one regular maid-servant, and an occasional help from a stable-boy, a nurse was introduced as a constant member of Davy's household establishment.
The visit of a lawyer, one day, put the family into a flutter. Davy was taken aside, and informed that Mr. So-and-so had resolved to call in his mortgage. Davy's heart sunk, until he thought he must have dropped; but how overjoyed he became when Lawyer Gripple so cheerfully offered himself as mortgagee to succeed his client Mr. So-and-so! Yet, when the new mortgage-deed was completed, Davy found himself, somehow or other, a hundred pounds more in debt for his house than before!
Young Davy Lidgitt now began to think more deeply, and proposed some curtailments of weekly expenditure to his wife; but she wept so passionately at the mention of them, that Davy's heart smote him for his cruelty. Then he tried to resolve on lessening his own "appearances;" but pride gat the better of him, and he dashed along, till at the end of one more year, Lawyer Gripple suddenly "called in his money," and followed up the call ere Davy could answer it, or procure another friend, by taking possession of Davy's house, and telling him that thenceforth he ceased to be any thing but a tenant, and for that title must pay him—Lawyer Gripple—twenty pounds a-year.
Before Davy could recover his surprise at this rapacious deed, Mr. Grumley failed in very heavy responsibilities, with very small assets, and young Davy was sent to prison for the debts to which he had pledged himself on account of his father-in-law.
To end a sorrowful story as speedily as possible, it remains but to say, that when poor Davy got out of gaol he found his wife and her children nearly starving and in rags, and living in a scanty, down-coming cottage, not half the size of that wherein his father and mother had lived so many years in contentment and prosperity—his house was not only entirely gone, but his van and horses were sold, and his business had passed, months before, into the hands of an industrious stranger.
Penniless, sick, and wretched, poor Davy Lidgitt was compelled to apply to the parish for bread, and he had no alternative but to obey their direction, and break stones on the road!
He was beheld in that employ for many years after—a fallen, broken-spirited man;—and often would the aged women observe to each other,—as they passed him by to work in the fields, and remembered Tom Cussitt's prophecy, to which Davy's father would so often recur in his neighbours' hearing,—"So much for the man who hath brought his ninepence to nought!"